Vollenhovia oblonga laevithorax Emery, 1889

Fig. 7

Vollenhovia laevithorax Emery, 1889: 501.

Type locality: Myanmar, Tenasserim [Syntypes: MSNG; Images of CASENT 0904539 syntype worker examined].

Vollenhovia levithorax – Dalla Torre 1893: 61 (misspelling).

Vollenhovia oblonga laevithorax – Emery 1897: 560; subspecies of Vollenhovia oblonga (Smith, 1860).

Vollenhovia oblonga leviuscula var. rufescens – Emery 1901: 567 (misspelled as leviuscula).

Remarks

Vollenhovia oblonga laevithorax Emery, 1889 is considered a relatively larger subspecies compared to the nominal V. oblonga oblonga (Smith, 1860), having the mesosoma smooth and shiny with a few delicate, scattered punctures anteriorly, and with the mandibles having six teeth. This subspecies forms part of the oblonga complex which contains six other subspecies including the nominal V. oblonga oblonga, V. oblonga alluaudi Emery, 1894, V. oblonga bandarensis Forel, 1913, V. oblonga dispar Forel, 1910, V. oblonga pedestris (Smith, 1861), and V. oblonga rufescens Emery, 1894. The oblonga complex is morphologically diverse and has a vast geographical range, being recorded from Pakistan to the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia (Wheeler 1927; Wilson 1959; Clouse 2007). Some of the subspecies exhibit characters suggesting that they may merit being raised to species status, with arguments for and against such changes already present in the literature, but the issue has never been resolved (see Bolton 2023).

In the study area, V. oblonga laevithorax has only been reported once from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Forel 1903). Mohanraj et al. (2010) carried out a comprehensive survey of ants on these islands (Fig. 5D) but could not find it again. The recent Pakistani record of V. oblonga laevithorax by Khudadad et al. (2021) is about 2000 km distant from any other record of V. oblonga (the closest region being Myanmar), which may be explained by insufficient sampling in northern India but also raises the possibility of a further separate taxon. Furthermore, it should be noted that at least the worker caste of V. oblonga laevithorax shows an overall similarity with species belonging to the V. penetrans complex from Southeastern Asia (Wang et al. 2022), which raises some doubts over the supposed co-occurrence of V. oblonga laevithorax and V. penetrans on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (see Remarks under V. penetrans). However, V. oblonga laevithorax is very different from any other species of the region due to a combination of very extensive smooth areas (e.g., covering the whole promesonotum) and the deep metanotal impression.

Distribution

Borneo, India (Andaman and Nicobar Islands), Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan (Emery 1889, 1900; Wheeler 1919; Mohanraj et al. 2010; Khudadad et al. 2021).